EY keeps it simple with its EdgeVerve alliance

If there’s one thing we see, it’s an endless stream of press releases announcing the latest and greatest partnerships and alliances between Company X and Company Y. While there are certainly some eye-catching announcements, which leave enterprise executives excited at potential new opportunities, many of them have very little substance beyond the initial press release. EY is striving to break this mold with their ‘quality over quantity’ approach to partnerships, the latest of which is EdgeVerve – for the Finacle Digital Banking suite. EY believes their latest partnership will allow them to help their banking and financial services (BFS) clients drive digital and core banking transformation in their organizations.

EY’s partnership with EdgeVerve aims to help drive options in digital and core banking transformation

It shouldn’t be breaking news that the BFS industry is operating with decades of technical debt, and the stringent regulatory environment makes it challenging for any bank to make their digital transformation ambitions a reality. This means it’s crucial that service providers, consultants and advisory firms alike arm themselves with not only the best technologies, but also the expertise needed to help their clients navigate the complex industry. EY recognized this, and it was a key driver of their partnerships with EdgeVerve, which will bring together the deep domain expertise of both parties.

If you look back to 2014 you might remember that Infosys founded EdgeVerve Systems as a new product division, and in 2015 it transferred the Finacle Banking solution suite to EdgeVerve. EdgeVerve remains an Infosys subsidiary, which means the partnership brings together capabilities and expertise from EY, EdgeVerve and Infosys. The partnership has two main dimensions; digital transformation and the modernization of banking platforms, and EY advised that it is targeted towards their mid-tier BFS clients, who often remain underserved. When we connected with EY, they explained that they had early success working with EdgeVerve, particularly in Europe and in the US – although the partnership is global – and this success has helped design the strategy for the partnership going forward.

EY focuses on the depth and quality of their partnerships, allowing them to “activate aggressively across all of channels”

The modern service provider boasts an endless stream of partners, and they claim to leverage every single one when helping their clients drive digital transformation. It’s undeniable, a partnership ecosystem can be a critical differentiator, and it really can offer genuine value for clients, but all too often these partnerships are little more than hot air, a marketing exercise designed to attract and retain clients, without offering them any real value. In contrast to this strategy, EY doesn’t aim to have the biggest set of alliances, but instead to have a collection of partners that each provide their own unique benefits – and they explained this is difficult to do at scale with thousands of relationships.

EY carefully selected EdgeVerve, they understood the value that it’s connection with Infosys could bring, in particular the Finacle suite of solutions, and how it would complement their own offering. They recognized that this would pass definite value on to their clients. Not only this, but they also understood how this partnership would fit into their existing ecosystem, with various partnerships complementing one another. This relationship with EdgeVerve is a great example of how EY is taking a ‘quality of quantity’ approach to their partnership ecosystem, and it’s a strategy that could pay dividends in the ‘have-to-have’ economy.

The Bottom Line: EY’s partnership with EdgeVerve is set to help banking clients overcome their digital woes, but it also demonstrates how partnerships should be carefully selected to optimize client outcomes

Thanks to the uncertainty brought on by the outbreak of Covid-19, we have witnessed one of the biggest economic downturns we are likely to see in our lifetimes. Every business is facing unique challenges, but the BFS industry is facing a battle on multiple fronts; the economic response saw interest rates plummet to record lows, and disruptors continue to chew away at their client base, both of which are drastically impacting their profit margins. In such uncertain times, BFS clients need support from a vendor with a carefully curated partnership ecosystem that allows them to bring together expertise and capabilities from multiple different sources, rather than a vendor with a never-ending list of relationships with little substance beyond their initial marketing hype.